


Picking Up Pieces

by Xzeihoranth



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27762322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xzeihoranth/pseuds/Xzeihoranth
Summary: The Second Keyblade War ends before it can truly begin, and the Wayfinder Three try to recover what's been taken from them.
Relationships: Aqua & Terra & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Kudos: 17





	1. Aqua

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of little chords have been changed, but the major notes have still been struck.

It is important to understand that the Realm of Darkness does not make sense. If the popular belief that Light constitutes order and peace is correct, then Dark is neither. It is 'hate and rage', as someone once said. It is chaos: a lake of enormous jellybeans shaped in ways that could not occur in nature and which **throb** colors that could not occur in nature; the ground can also retch and writhe beneath one's feet, not like a simple quake, but like an _unliving thing_ , too massive to really comprehend. Yet it is also unending, unchanging: even when the small, too-small room one is in becomes a flat empty plain, it cannot truly be said that the room ever existed to begin with, nor can it be said that the flat empty plain exists now even as one attempts to traverse it. It is only the mind trying to make sense of the senselessness that surrounds it, pressing in and squeezing sanity like a vice.

It's hard to describe what time in such a place would do to someone. Of course, time does not exist here either, but it's just as hard to describe life without time. It doesn't make sense. The same person who called the Dark 'hate and rage' had been trapped in its Realm while eleven years passed in the realm she called home. For her, it was nightmare after nightmare without end. Even brief moments of respite were tainted, as she sought shelter in swathes of worlds that she had once known, now crumbling and abandoned, like her, in the Dark. Abandoned in the Dark. Abandoned in the Dark. Abandoned in the Dark.

_Stop it._

She is Master Aqua, and she's free now. She fulfilled her promise. She freed her friends. So why does she feel so empty?

_Because you didn't free them. Sora did. One of those children Mickey palled around with rather than come try and rescue you. Are you really worthy of being a Keyblade Master?_

_No,_ she thinks feebly.  _No, he didn't. Ven and I, we opened Terra's heart._

_He freed Ven. You were too weak. That's what fighting the darkness did to you. It made you weak._

She remembers.  _I didn't fight. I... I couldn't._

_You didn't fight. You gave in. Master Eraqus would be so ashamed._

"Hey!" A voice she'd never thought she would hear again registers only dimly in the back of her mind. The owner of the voice, a brown-haired young man a little shorter than her, cleaves through a skittering black creature as it lunges toward his friend. Ventus twirls his Keyblade and shouts another name over his shoulder. "Terra!"

Another man, taller than both his friends but with darker brown hair than Ventus, pauses in his fight with several more of the creatures. Casting a quick glance in their direction, he says, "I know." Some of the creatures scurry in for the attack, and he stomps the ground, sending them flying up for Ventus to take care of. "You finish them off. I'll keep 'em away."

"You got it!" Ventus surges forward while Terra takes up a position in front of Aqua. Without their Keyblades, they haven't been able to defend themselves as well as normal. (Though, Ventus reflects, things haven't been normal for a long time.) Worse, Aqua seems almost comatose, rigid with fright, brown eyes unseeing.  _You protected me Aqua,_ he thinks to himself.  _Now we're protecting you._

It is important to understand that the Realm of Darkness does not make sense. Though she is free now, and far away, it maintains a hold on her. Black arms rise from the depths, a choking hand for every throat.

* * *

  
  


_"A Keyblade Master with no Keyblade." Hearing another man's voice come out of her friend's body still hurt. Aqua clutched at her chest. Her wounds from the battle still ached, even after the Curaga Mickey had cast on her. "Do not think I will go easy on you. You have caused several minor disturbances, but my plan moves forward regardless."_

_"You need Ven to make the χ-blade." Aqua managed to say. "You won't find him."_

_Xehanort in Terra's body smiled. "Of course. Even your miniscule amount of knowledge is out of date. You are correct though, in a manner of speaking-"_

_"Shut. Up." She felt the darkness flutter inside her in a sick sort of pleasure as the smirk on Xehanort's stolen face faded. "I don't need a Keyblade to stop you."_

_"She's right. She's got us!" Sora said from his position on her left. She looked down at him. He was about the height Ventus would be if he'd been allowed to grow up properly, not trapped in slumber._

_"I might have to take my mask off so I can throw up." Vanitas growled._

_"Keep it on." Riku said. "You look a lot better when I can't see your face."_

_Vanitas turned his head toward Riku. "Well at LAST. Someone with a sense of humor."_

_"She is right." Xehanort announced. "The time for talk is over."_

* * *

  
  


"Aqua! Aqua!"

Aqua blinks slowly. 

"Aqua. Can you hear me?"

She blinks again. "Ter...ra?"

"Yeah, it's me." Terra says. "We're getting you someplace safe."

"Safe...? Am I still..." Her face hardens.

"No! You're fine!" Ventus chimes in. "We just don't want to wait around for more of the Heartless to show up."

"Oh." She reaches forward slowly. If she could think more clearly, she would realize that being able to touch Terra's ears from behind means that he's carrying her on his back.

Terra squirms away from her touch. "What are you-"

"They're not pointed." Aqua says, as if that explains everything. With that, she rests her cheek on Terra's shoulder and tries to pull herself together.

It doesn't seem to work. The next thing she knows she's in a building. Everything feels big and far away, and she wonders where she's felt that before. She's seen this building before as well. Her head suddenly throbs. She grimaces and buries her face in her hands. There's a commotion at the door. She sits up straight, hands in her lap, trying to will the headache away.

The door opens slightly. Terra pokes his head through the crack. His green eyes light up as he sees that she's awake, and he's opening his mouth to say something when something pulls him away. Aqua's heart doesn't even have time to skip a beat before Ventus rushes into the room. "Aqua!" He nearly knocks her over as he goes in for a hug, and it's only then that she realizes she's in a chair.

"Ven." she laughs, returning the hug as best she can. She doesn't understand why he seems so relieved to see her. She hopes they haven't been too worried about her. That's her job, after all: to worry about them. She pulls back to look at him. "I'm okay." she says fervently.

"Hmm, mmm. Not the way I would have put it." The speaker is an old man in blue robes and a tall blue hat, with a long white beard that reaches almost to the floor. He too is familiar. Aqua hadn't noticed him come in. Or Terra for that matter, who's standing awkwardly off to one side. He's looking cautiously at her, like she's going to collapse again.

"I'm fine. Really." she says to the whole room, most of all herself.

The old man mutters some more. "Now-now-now-now it's not my area of expertise, but from what your friends have said, you've been spending a great deal of time in the Realm of Darkness? On your own?"

"She didn't have a choice." Ventus puts in.

"No Ven. That's not true." Aqua says sadly. "I had a choice. I had two. I sent Terra back with my Keyblade and my armor. I trapped myself. Then I stayed behind to close the Door to Darkness."  _It's like I didn't want to leave,_ she almost adds.

"Oh my, oh my." the old man says. "Perilous business! It sounds as if you've punished yourself enough though, so it's best to move on."

Aqua catches Terra's eye.

Ventus, given up on getting another hug from Aqua, has gone to stand between them. He looks back and forth, trying to figure out what that look might have meant.

"I don't mean to be rude." Aqua says slowly. "Who are you again?"

The old man jumps. "By my own beard! Surely you remember Merlin??"

"Oh, of course!" She'd only met him briefly, but the old man seems riled enough that she decides to tell a white lie and agree. "I'm so sorry sir."

Merlin's temper vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. "No no no no, think nothing of it. Now, your heart has been...let's say damaged by your time in darkness. It seems to me that your next step should be to recover your Keyblade and armor. Keyblades are a manifestation of your heart, you know. And having it back would certainly help." he adds.

Aqua doesn't say anything.

"Have you done that already?" Merlin asks.

"No." Aqua admits. "I hadn't really had time. I thought my magic would keep me safe until-"

"Well then! A quest!" Merlin pulls a piece of parchment out from his beard and a quill from out of thin air. "Where did you send them?"

Aqua frowns. "I don't... I wasn't really sending him anywhere, just _away_. I just didn't want him in the Darkness."

Merlin laboriously scribbles something upon the parchment. "Hmm. And where were you before the Darkness?"

"Radiant Garden. Fighting Xehanort." She'd gone over that battle so many times in her mind. Why hadn't she been able to unlock Terra's heart? Had Xehanort already shut him out so completely? Or was she just too weak, like she always is?

"Yes, yes. I remember hearing about that. An instinctive sending spell would have returned Xehanort to the place he was before he fell into Darkness. Er, fell _physically_. The king took him to the castle in order to recover. That must have been a year before Xehanort overthrew the king and all that business with the Heartless." Merlin continues to talk more quickly than he can write. "Your Keyblade and armor would likely have been taken to the castle as well. I hope I don't need to tell you what you should do next."

Aqua takes a deep breath and gets to her feet. "Thank you Merlin. We're sorry to have intruded." she says.

"Intruded? Nonsense. I've been hoping to see you again." Merlin finishes writing. He rolls up the parchment and hands it to Aqua. "All my best, and all that."

"Thanks, but the castle's just up the road. We don't really need the parchment." Ventus says.

"Don't you?" Merlin replies with a wink. With that, he heads off into the back room, leaving the three of them on their own.

"I was hoping he wouldn't say that." Terra says suddenly.

Aqua and Ventus look at him. He stares off into the distance, arms folded, refusing to meet their gaze. "What?" Ventus asks.

"That they'd been taken to the castle. The people there will only know me as Xehanort."

Aqua's stomach drops. "Oh Terra..." she murmurs.

"It's fine. I can't run from it forever." He strides toward the door. "Let's get this over with."

* * *

  
  


"Your majesty." The three of them bow slightly before Ansem the Wise.

He returns their greeting with a thoughtful nod. "What business brings you to me? I daresay not a trivial one, else you in particular, Master Terra, would likely have preferred to remain far away."

Terra grimaces. "Yes sir." He stands bolt upright like they're in front of their old master again. "That's actually sort of the reason we've come."

"Oh?" Ansem's face is unreadable. It must come from his time in the Realm of Darkness. The creatures there might not have been alive in the usual sense, but that didn't make them any less cunning. Keeping a calm expression on one's face gives them fewer clues to read.

"We think some of my belongings may have wound up here when he- When Xehanort did." Aqua says. "If it's not too much trouble, we'd like to try and look for them."

"Yes..." Ansem's voice grows distant. "A Keyblade and a suit of armor. We knew even less about Keyblades in those days. To see one apart from its wielder was most unexpected."

Suddenly they remember the Graveyard. Aqua sees the fallen Keyblades stretching out far beyond the horizon, and wonders if she could have managed to count them all in her time in Darkness. Terra feels nothing, not even the darkness that pinioned him. Ventus hears the voice from within, from deeper than conscious thought: _just hold out your hand and I'll hold out mine and there it is, th_ e _χ-blade_. _Even now._

Ansem is still speaking. "We first thought it belonged to him, to Xehanort. There was no one who could have told us otherwise, least of all him. Yet as the weeks passed and it did not come when summoned, it seemed he had forgotten it. We ran what tests we could, but all they showed was lifeless metal. One day, it simply was not there. I presumed someone had taken it upon themselves to move it into storage."

"A place this big has gotta have plenty of attics. Any idea where we should start?" Ventus asks.

Terra and Aqua can't help but smile at the casual way he says it, like he's perfectly willing to spend multiple afternoons searching through dusty boxes and crates in dimly-lit rooms as long as it's for something important.

"If I may, sir..." Aqua starts. The young man in the corner of the king's study, who had scarcely given them a glance as they walked in, has suddenly decided to speak up.

"Yes, Ienzo?" Ansem says.

"I've remembered something. From when I wasn't...myself." Unlike Ansem, Ienzo is less adept at concealing his feelings. He drums his fingers on his leg when he's upset. "Xigbar once said that Xemnas would go down to the Chamber of Repose and talk to someone. He mentioned something about a 'friend'."

"Xemnas was the Nobody of Xehanort who had stolen your body. And Xigbar...was once one of my apprentices. A man named Braig." Ansem explains.

This time all three of them start. "Braig?" Terra says in shock. "He was working with Xehanort!"

Ansem frowns. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" the three of them say, in unison this time.

"I defeated him at the Keyblade Graveyard! He said he was only there to buy time, and then-"

"Then Vanitas showed up."

"And I fought him before all of that, right here in Radiant Garden." Terra leaves out the part where Xehanort had tricked him into giving into his darkness. Like Merlin said, it was best to move on.

"If this is true, then Xehanort's plans may stretch further than we realize even now." Ansem slams his fist against his chair. "Yet I cannot believe-" he continues in the same voice, which somehow feels cold instead of calm. "-I cannot believe that Braig himself would willingly ally with such a man. Perhaps Xehanort had some leverage on him, some sort of manipulation, the way he did on you."

Terra flinches. Ventus gives him a reassuring nudge with his shoulder. Aqua finds herself clenching fists of her own in order to keep calm. "Not even a Keyblade Master can know everything that's in a person's heart. He may have been one man to you and another man to others. It's how he treated those with less power than himself that shows the most of what he was." Her body shakes with anger that has too many places to go, Xehanort, Braig, even the king in front of her. _How dare he judge Terra that way? Him, of all people!_ She clenches her hands and her teeth tighter, until her jaw aches and her hands begin to bleed.

At long last, Ansem sighs. "Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I was simply too close to the man to see it. Or perhaps I only thought I was so close."

Ienzo is suddenly right next to Aqua. "You're bleeding." he informs her.

"What?" She looks down at the gashes her nails have left in the palms of her hands.

"Here." He passes her a handkerchief to staunch the bleeding. She hastens to do so, before any more blood can drop onto the pristine floor.

"I'm so sorry Your Majesty." she says to Ansem frantically.

He raises a hand in an attempt to quell her panic. "It can easily be cleaned." he replies.

She can feel Terra's eyes upon her. For some reason she doesn't want to look up. "Aqua, use your magic." he tells her.

"No! That would be a waste!" Her voice is too loud. "It'll stop bleeding soon." she says, more quietly.

Ansem clears his throat. "Nobodies retain memories from their time as living people. Perhaps Xehanort remembered more than he let on, and thus so would Xemnas." He stands up. "I had hoped those floors would forever remain sealed, but it seems that was not meant to be." He crosses the floor to a blank stretch of wall, Ienzo only a few steps behind. "When you are ready, we will go down together." he says as he turns to face them.

* * *

  
  


The king presses his hand to a certain section of the wall, which glows and then reveals the whole thing to be an illusion. The three warriors follow the king and his assistant along a platform curving sharply to the left before leading to another room on the right. None of them can see beyond or below the platform, yet somehow they feel that's for the best. They find a bank of machinery in the room, which Ienzo immediately begins tinkering with. "The passwords were fairly simple: the names of His Majesty's six apprentices. I cannot stress how lax Xemnas was with his security." he says.

"I guess he figured no one else would care." Ventus muses.

"Or be allowed to make it this far." Terra says darkly.

Ienzo continues as if they hadn't spoken. "A simple jumble of names would have proved almost uncrackable- Ah." A message appears on the screen, apparently a good one. He leads them out the door opposite the one they'd entered from, and down a short flight of stairs. He steps on a glowing symbol to open a large hatch in the floor, beneath which is a ramp leading down to another platform.

"Have you been down there?" Aqua asks. She's still clutching the handkerchief with both hands. It's drenched with blood by now.

"Not since Xemnas..." He leaves the thought unfinished, drumming his fingers faster on his leg.

Ansem puts a hand on his shoulder. "You do not have to accompany us if you do not wish."

Ienzo looks relieved. "Thank you sire. I doubt there would be much use for me down below." He heads back up the stairs without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

Ansem looks into the shadows in front of them before he gestures to the ramp. "After you."

"You're the one who knows where we need to go, Your Majesty." Ventus reminds him.

"Ah. After me then." he says with an almost-smile. He descends the ramp, Ventus close on his heels, Terra and Aqua further behind.

Ventus rushes to the edge of the platform to take a look down. "Whoa!" He almost loses his footing, but Terra pulls him away. "Thanks Terra. I couldn't see the bottom."

"It takes four minutes of walking to reach it." Ansem informs them. "It would behoove us to start sooner rather than later."

"Or...we could magic our way down." Terra says.

"Ansem can't do that." Aqua says reprovingly.

"But we could do it for him!" Ventus says.

"Would that not also be a waste?" Ansem asks.

"Stay out of this!" Aqua snaps.

Her friends rear backwards in shock. Ventus says her name softly.

_"Aqua..." Riku chokes._

_Mickey and Riku were gasping for breath by the time they reached the top of the tower. She should press the attack, catch them off balance, but it felt as though something kept her in that chair. She couldn't make out what it was: some sort of history, even though she'd never been here before? Regardless, it suited her to wait. What was another few seconds after those long years?_

_"Oh no." Mickey said. She could hear them approaching quickly, sloshing through the liquid shadow that she'd wrenched from the End of Sea. They thought she was dead. She might as well be, for all they'd cared before._

_"Did we fight too hard?" Riku asked._

_"I don't think so. The Aqua I knew would've survived that no problem."_

_"Maybe she was too tired." Riku said, and that_ hurt _her somehow. A bolt of pain went through her, raw and searing hot, like it was the first thing she had ever felt. It must've shown on her face, because Riku and Mickey both gasped and summoned their Keyblades._

_Her head shot up, and she glared daggers at them. "Knew me?" she said coldly. "You never knew me. You simply ran into me one day and acted as though you did."_

_"Aqua..." Mickey said quietly._

_She gritted her teeth. "Shut UP!" The shadows bore her upright and set her back on her feet. They'd known her longer than Mickey had. They were all she could rely on._

_Another bolt of pain hit her, this one somewhere she thought she'd managed to subdue: her heart. She let out a ragged yell and plunged her hands into her own chest, trying to find it and rip it out, but it felt as though it was moving constantly, eluding her. Like Mickey's presence was making it bring back memories of the last time she'd seen her friends._

_Fine. If that was what her heart wanted. She'd get rid of both of them. Then she wouldn't hurt anymore._

_She pulled her hands out. One dripped with blood. The other pulsed with darkness. Before her eyes, the liquid in each hand formed into a sword. The sword made of blood was longer, the sword made of darkness was sharper._

_She readied her new weapons (her_ true _weapons) and began to advance._

She pulls herself free of her anger's clutches to find everyone still looking at her. "Your Majesty-" she says, aghast. "-I apologize for my behavior. It was utterly uncalled-for."

"There is darkness here that may never be extinguished. In my zealous drive to protect this world, I forever scarred it." Ansem sighs. "Perhaps it was equally as foolish to bring the three of you here. We have all been subjected to its temptations in one way or another."

The silence that follows is so oppressive that Aqua can hear the rushing of blood through her veins. Terra begins tapping his foot upon the floor in order to have something to focus on.

Finally, Ventus speaks. "So we're just going to leave Aqua's stuff down here to rust? I don't believe that. We may have had our share of brushes with the darkness, but we've also faced way worse than this." He looks at Aqua. "And we've got each other now. That'll give us the strength to pull through."

Aqua laughs shakily. "You sound like Sora." she teases.

Ventus shrugs. "Maybe. Or maybe Sora sounds like me. Ever think of that?" he adds with his hands on his hips.

Terra smiles. "All right then. Lead the way 'Ventusora'."

Ventus wrinkles his nose at the nickname but heads off down the sloping spiral. Ansem is close behind him, while Terra and Aqua bring up the rear.

Terra notices the way Aqua's hands are clasped around the handkerchief. "Here, let me." He puts his hands over hers and wordlessly casts a minor Cure spell.

She inhales sharply. "Didn't I say it was a waste?" she mutters.

"You won't be able to hold your Keyblade with wounds like that." he says.

She lets out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "You're right." she admits, to herself as well as to him.

"Of course I am."

She rolls her eyes and he smiles again.

They've only been walking for under a minute. The clanking of their boots is almost rhythmic, but soon even those echoes are swallowed up by the deepening darkness.

"What if it doesn't respond to me?" Aqua ventures abruptly. "It's been so long out here. What if it's just...dead?"

"I don't think that's even possible. But what do I know? I'm not a Master, despite what Ansem said." Terra says.

"Are you still hung up on that?" Aqua asks. She'd meant to be teasing, like with Ventus earlier, but it comes out too harshly.

"It's not just a title. There's responsibilities, knowledge, power. You of all people should know." he says tersely.

She almost apologizes right then and there, but that horrible part of her that she thought she'd buried in the Realm of Darkness says that it serves him right for casting magic on her without her permission.

At last they arrive at the bottom and are greeted with a double-sided door that refuses to open.

"Uh..." Ventus says. He scratches his head. "Is there a password or something?"

"Perhaps. But there is nowhere to enter it." Ansem says.

"Ven, maybe your Keyblade can open it." Aqua reminds him.

"Oh, right." He summons his Keyblade and presses it gently against the exact center of the door. It groans, shudders, finally drags open. "Piece of cake."

The corridor inside is only dimly illuminated, the flickering lights revealing multiple doors on either side. As they step in, Aqua notices the bars on each window, and a cold dread seems to cover her skin as she realizes they're all prison cells. "Horrible things have happened here." she whispers quietly.

Ansem maintains his tight-lipped silence.

They pass the fourth set of cells. A flicker of movement from one of them draws Aqua's attention. She squints, trying to make out its interior. Yellow eyes glare balefully at her and she stumbles back in terror. "I'm not so easy to defeat." her darker self rasps. "Not like you."

Terra and Ven are at her side in an instant. "What's wrong?" Ven asks.

"It's not- It's not-" She can't get the words out. "It's- It's not  **me** ."

"What isn't-" Terra tries to interject.

"I'M NOT HER!" Aqua screams at the top of her lungs. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND? TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND!"

Despite her friends' best efforts, they can't manage to get through to her. Ansem, as if recalling her earlier outburst, does not attempt to intervene, merely watching with a strange expression on his face. If anyone had been paying attention, they might have recognized it as deja vu.

"What do we do?" Terra asks desperately, struggling to be heard over Aqua's continued screams.

"How should I know?" Ventus replies, equally as desperate.

All they can do is sit with her in the far corner of the hall by the entrance. She's tucked up in a ball, head against her knees; no longer screaming but crying, almost as horrifying to her worried friends. She can't remember the last time she cried. She can't remember much of anything, she's coming to realize. That damn old man, all thirteen of him. Yes, there had only really been five of him: his youngest self, himself in Terra's body, the Seeker of Darkness, Xemnas, and his truest oldest self, looking down on all of them from that plateau he'd raised. But he'd placed pieces of his heart into all the rest of those people in black robes. Aqua only really felt sorry for Xion; the rest deserved whatever fate had befallen them. Three of them had tried to help (had they? or had they just tried to save their own skins?), but she couldn't bring herself to care.

_ Huh.  _ She hadn't realized she remembered all of that. She wonders what else is in that stupid brain of hers, how many times she'll jump at shadows before she can be herself again.

To the surprise of all three of her companions as well as herself, she finds herself laughing.

"What's so funny?" asks Ventus, grateful to have something he knows how to respond to.

"Jumping at shadows." she says. She's still laughing even through the tears pouring down her face.

Terra and Ventus glance at each other briefly.

"What does that mean?" Terra asks.

"Oh," she sniffs. "It's nothing." Wiping her eyes on her sleeves, she looks up. "I missed both of you so much."

"I missed you too Aqua." Terra says. His hands twitch, like he wants to put a hand on her shoulder but keeps thinking better of it. "I even missed Ven."

"You better have." Ventus says, almost smiling despite his best efforts.

Terra just laughs, as does Aqua. Ventus joins in a moment later.

Ansem looks up, surprised to hear such a sound down here.  _ The laughter of friends. It is what I swore to protect. How then has that road led me to this place? _

Laughter subsiding, Aqua finally struggles to her feet. She steps forward and holds out her arms. Neither Terra nor Ventus hesitate. The three of them embrace, and not even a cracking sound from the other end of the hall is enough to make them part.

Ansem turns his head. The door has started to crumble. It hadn't seemed that unstable before, but it's falling apart before his eyes. A bright light from within causes him to shield his eyes suddenly.

Something clanks in the distance. Metal upon tile. It stirs a distant memory, strong enough that Aqua looks up and around Terra. Her armor, moving seemingly of its own accord, is limping in her direction. She can't move, unwilling to break this hug that she's needed for so long, but she urges it forward. It takes one step, then another.

"Aqua?" Terra mutters. He's heard it as well, but he can't bring himself to end the hug either. His grip on both of them tightens.

"It's okay." she tells him. "My armor's coming."

He's silent for a time. The armor takes another stumbling step. "Doesn't it hurt?" he asks.

"What?" Aqua asks.

Ventus echoes her. "What?" He pulls back a little and looks up at Terra.

"When I was- When Xehanort took my body, I was- It felt like I was being pulled in so many different directions. Like I was a puppet on so many different strings." Her armor takes another step. Ventus takes a nervous look to his left. "Most of the time they were binding me so tightly I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. Every thought I had was one of his. Then sometimes, he would loosen them, just enough so he could use  _ my  _ strength for his own."

"Oh Terra." Aqua says again, helplessly.

"Sometimes it felt like I was in more than one place at once, doing whatever he wanted of me. It wasn't enough for him to take my body, he had to take what was left of my soul too."

"...what was left?" Ventus asks.

"Yeah. Part of me stayed behind with my armor in the Graveyard. I think I remember fighting Sora once."

"Wait, I might've seen it during the final battle. I thought it was just you in there." Ventus says.

The armor staggers forward. Now Aqua can feel it. Just like Terra said, it was as if she was being pulled in two. She could see herself, or rather, she could see the three of them huddled together, with her on the far side of the huddle, poking her head under Terra's massive shoulder like she was a child hiding from her own armor. She blinks. She can see her armor again. Its own shoulders are sagging. It doesn't look as though it's going to make it the rest of the way down the hall to her.

Her head spins. She feels nauseous, though she hasn't found the time to eat anything in goodness-knows-how-long.

_ I let go. _

She lets go.

_ I walk forward. _

She walks toward it.

_ I am in two places at once. _

It hurts. But armor can't hurt. Empty armor. There's nothing in it to hurt.

_ I am almost there. _

She reaches out her hand.

_ I reach out my hand. _

_ Who is talking? _

Me?

_ Or me? _

_ It hurts. _

She hurts.

_ It hurts. _

_ It hurts. _

And then...

_ I hurt. _

_ There is no you and I. It's just...me. _

_ I'm sorry I left you. _

_ I'm sorry I left me? No, that's not helpful. _

_ There is no you and I. _

Something in her hand thrums. Her Keyblade changes shape, back to the way it was in the beginning, before it's gone.

She can feel it in her heart again.

It's the lights coming on in your home at night.

It's the first notes of a song she heard from a hole in thin air, something she'd thought she'd long forgotten.

She is one but not whole. Restored but not healed.

Yet still, Master Aqua opens her eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

The ship will come under cover of night. Despite all the strange things the people of Radiant Garden have experienced, the world order must still be protected.

The three of them wait inside the castle, Ventus pacing back and forth, Terra leaning against a pillar with his arms folded, and Aqua practicing summoning her Keyblade. First, she does it with a swish and a flick; dainty, elegant, all the things her friends used to tease her about in their younger days; then twirling it around so quickly neither of her friends can quite make out when she vanishes it and when she resummons it. She changes it up almost as often as Ven changes directions in his pacing.

"You keep doing that, you're gonna wear it out." Terra says finally.

"That's not how it works!" Aqua and Ven say at the same time. They look at each other in surprise, then Aqua speaks again.

"You can't wear out a Keyblade, Terra." she says. For a moment, she doubts her own words. _A Keyblade is a manifestation of your heart. And hearts can break..._ Then she steels herself, stamping down on that doubt as hard as she can.

"Yeah! And it'd take a lot more pacing to wear out this kinda stone." Ventus crouches down and raps it with his knuckles to emphasize his point.

"You never know, Ven." Terra says. "Stone wears out like everything else. It just takes longer." He stands up straight and stares off into the distance between his two friends. "Everything ends."

It's unusually solemn, even for Terra.

Aqua almost fumbles her Keyblade as she looks at him. "What was that about?" she wonders to herself.

Someone clears their throat. Aqua does drop it this time, hurriedly picking it up before she turns to confront the source of the noise.

"Am I interrupting something?" Riku asks from a side passage.

"No. We're ready to go." Aqua says, allowing her Keyblade to vanish, hoping that it will be enough to calm her pounding heart.

"Me too. Any last-minute goodbyes?"

Ventus shrugs.

Aqua shakes her head.

Terra, as usual, doesn't say anything.

"Great. Let's go." With that, Riku walks right back out the door.

Ventus and Terra try to go through first, at exactly the same time as it happens, which prompts a minor scuffle and a smile from Aqua. But it ends just as Terra had said, and soon all three of them are following Riku to a courtyard that's only barely big enough to contain his ship.

"I did some remodeling. Shouldn't be as much of a squeeze this time." Riku explains. "Even for you big guy." he adds to Terra.

"Uh, thanks." Terra says. He doesn't really know what he's supposed to say to that.

"Don't mention it." Riku walks up the ramp behind Terra. "You guys got anywhere else to go?"

"If you're busy I'm sure I can teach myself to fly this thing!" Aqua says hastily.

"It's not a thing, it's a Gummi Ship." Riku says as he settles into the pilot's seat. "And no, I'm not busy." He flips some switches and the ship hums to life. "I could be searching for Sora, but..." He trails off. "Anyway."

"Um..." Aqua smiles, a little sheepishly. "We hadn't actually gotten as far as discussing it."

"Right. So I guess we'll just sit here then." Riku is about to power the ship off when a voice from behind stops him.

"Wait." Everyone turns to Terra. "The Badlands. Take me there."

"Huh? Why?" Riku asks.

"I have to get my Keyblade back."

"You already did." Riku says, sounding confused.

"No. There wasn't time."

"But I saw- When we were all fighting the replicas. You had it."

"Fighting replicas?" Ventus furrows his brow. "I don't remember it like that."

"But-" Riku grimaces. "Hold on." He looks back to the controls, taking the ship up and away from Radiant Garden. Once they're in space, he peers at a small screen to his left before he pushes a few more buttons. "There. Now we're on autopilot." He swivels his chair to face his guests. "Like I said, we were all fighting Xehanort's replicas. With our Keyblades." He glances at Terra. "All of us."

"I remember you, Kairi and Sora fighting Xehanort." Terra says firmly.

"No, it was Sora, Donald and Goofy-"

"Guys! Knock it off!" Ventus interjects.

Aqua jumps, while Terra huffs a frustrated sigh. "We weren't arguing."

"Speak for yourself. We can't both be right." Riku says.

Aqua puts her hand to her chest and says nothing. She hates how easily she's startled now. She'd thought being out of the Realm of Darkness would have eased her nerves.

"Terra's a lot of things, but even he wouldn't lose his Keyblade _and_ forget where he put it." Ventus says.

Riku gives in. "If you say so. You both know him a lot better than me."

The rest of the trip passes in relative quiet. Aqua's heart won't stop pounding. She tells herself she should be happy it still beats. It hadn't when she was engulfed in the darkness, and she doesn't know how she had been alive then, or even if she _had_ been alive. Terra's thoughts are his own before he falls asleep. His dreams, thankfully, are no longer someone else's. Ventus and Riku talk in hushed tones about Sora. Ventus says that he doesn't feel like Sora even exists any more; the bond their hearts formed has been cut so cleanly he can't remember what that bond felt like. Riku mentions Roxas and Xion saying something similar. Neither of them are willing to bring up the potential of him being dead. Riku can still see him out of the corner of his eye, sitting next to him beside the bonfire, can still hear him claiming he'd only be a minute while he stole into the bushes. He never came back, of course.

A desert world slowly comes into view, the devastation of its surface readily apparent. Huge swathes have been cut away, or raised into mountains visible only as jagged lines from this distance. Terra stirs as their ship approaches the planet.

"Do we know where it is?" Riku asks. "I mean, looking for one Keyblade in a graveyard full of them..."

Terra opens his eyes blearily. He yawns and tries to sit up. "I'll know when I'm close." he mumbles.

"Great. So I'll set down anywhere and we'll just wander around for hours." Riku snarks.

"You can stay with the ship if you want." Aqua says, a little coolly. She'd never dream of talking back to her elders like that.

"Nah. No point. There shouldn't be anything around that'd want to steal it." Riku says. Just then the ship shakes.

Ventus clutches both sides of his seat. "W-what's going on?"

"Turbulence. Nothing to worry about." Despite his carefree tone, Riku grips the steering wheel that's suddenly emerged from the control panel tightly, his knuckles white.

"Is there anything we can do?" Aqua asks.

"Just hold on." Riku replies.

Aqua tries, but despite herself, her eyes dart wildly around the cockpit, searching for some way to help. Aero spells are out of the question: she'd need to have an outside view of the wind patterns to try to figure out how to counter them. For all her magic and training, she's useless.

Riku struggles to get the ship to obey. "Come on..." he breathes, jerking the steering wheel from side to side. Another bout of turbulence buffets the ship, and the four of them only just manage to stay in their seats.

"Would it be safer if we got out and jumped?" Terra yells.

"Just hold on!" Riku shouts in return. He pulls back on the steering wheel and the ship rockets up into low orbit once more. "I'm gonna try finding someplace else for us to land." he says apologetically.

"Could...could you hold on a minute?" Aqua asks. "I think I might be sick..."

"Oh. Yeah, sure." Riku hastily puts the ship into idle, looking at Aqua out of the corner of his eye like he thinks she's going to explode.

  
  


* * *

  
  


After Aqua's nerves subside and Riku manages to get them down to the surface, the four of them disembark, unspeakably grateful to have solid ground beneath their feet again. Their relief is tempered somewhat by the knowledge that the ground they're standing on is the site of one of their greatest defeats, as well as the resting place of so many of their fellow Keyblade wielders.

"So which way?" Riku asks, hoping to get Terra to stop staring. He couldn't even see what the other man was staring at.

Terra doesn't say anything.

And because he doesn't say anything, no one says anything.

For a moment that seems to stretch into another twelve years, he's looking down into the dust at his feet, unable to move, unable to blink, unable to think, unable to die.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

He waits.

A boy comes. He shouldn't be here. Even if he did choose him. No, he didn't. It's not him. Rage awakens him that is not him. The empty armor. He draws power from across the void, from where he that is him is trapped. Some part of him realizes that this shouldn't be possible, unless these holes that the power flows through had already been made. Those experiments. The things the old man did while puppeting a younger man's body. Could those have-

And then he is himself again, stumbling back, screaming though his lungs don't have any air, so all that comes out is a pathetic wheeze. He looks down at his hands (HIS hands! He has hands again) and the relief he finds in that is cut short by a searing pain in his head.

Aqua's seen this before. The blank staring, the wheezing, the hands clutching his head. Her Keyblade is in her own hands now, before she can even think of calling it.

Ventus has seen none of this. "What's going on?" he shouts, desperate for someone to talk to him. But they're shutting him out again. Treating him like he's a child, when he's older than either of them.

"I don't know." Riku says. _Aqua pulling out her Keyblade isn't a good sign though._ "Get back!" He tries tugging Ven away, but Ven pulls away from him instead.

"Terra! Aqua! Cut it out!" he yells at them.

Aqua's arm wavers. She's pointing her Keyblade at Terra's body, like before. She can stop this. Second chances are so rare, she mustn't waste hers. But Ven... Ven wasn't there before. He was asleep.

 _It's the darkness playing tricks on me._ She straightens her arm. _What am I waiting for?_

The instant before she lunges, Terra croaks her name. "Aqua."

"Don't-" She doesn't know what she was going to say next.

"Aqua." It's Ven this time, more quietly than a few moments ago. "It's okay."

She lowers her Keyblade slightly, trying to look Terra in the eyes. Her body is trembling with the effort of keeping every muscle tense at once. Finally he opens his eyes. Green. Not yellow. Green.

Breathing hard, she lowers her arm. Try as she might, she can't get her Keyblade to dissipate.

She looks at Ventus. He nods reassuringly.

"All right." she says. "Let's go." She sounds almost like herself when she says it.

Terra lets his hands fall away from his face. They tremble slightly, but everyone pretends not to notice. "That way." he says. Rather than point in the direction he means, he walks, hoping everyone else will follow, even though he knows they shouldn't.

* * *

  
  


Riku catches up to him surprisingly quickly. "You wanna tell me what just happened? Cause I do _not_ like being left out."

"I'm not sure I can explain it. If I wanted to." Terra says.

"Fine. Then I'll just ask Aqua. She looked about ready to kill you."

Terra laughs once. "She wouldn't kill me. Or Ven for that matter. But if it came to Xehanort..."

Riku waits, but when it's clear that Terra is done talking for now, he says, "Come on, aren't we supposed to be bequeath-buddies or something? Talk to me."

But Terra doesn't. He keeps walking in the direction he thinks his heart is taking him.

Riku throws up his hands and sighs. He lets himself fall behind until he's with Aqua and Ventus. "You probably heard me ask him." he observes.

Ventus nods. He looks carefully at Aqua. Her face is like stone.

"If you won't tell me, pretend I'm not here. Tell Ventus." Riku offers.

"Later." she says tersely.

Riku sighs again, louder. "Great. Not like we have anything else to talk about."

"How about the weather?" Ventus says.

"Oh yeah. Intermittent severe winds from just about anywhere; kinda hot, but it's a _dry heat_ ; and nothing but clouds in sight overhead..."

Riku and Ventus laugh. It might just be their imagination, but the look on Aqua's face seems to soften slightly.

Terra comes to a stop so abruptly that the three people behind him almost run into him. "What are you doing out here?" they hear him ask. Ventus peers around him, and sees a jumbled heap of bronzed metal on the ground at Terra's feet. A strange humming and grinding noise fills the air. Aqua stiffens reflexively. Terra responds as if they'd been words. "No. No, I'm not Xehanort. Xehanort's gone." The humming grinding noise sounds again, harsher now. "I know, it's hard to believe. I'm not even sure _I_ believe it. But I'm me again. And you're part of me too." The sound echoes around the empty plain. "What do you mean 'no'?" The armor moves, apparently of its own volition. "You can't be serious." Now Ventus can see it's trying to stand up, which really shouldn't be possible. Then again, it shouldn't be possible to split a soul into thirteen pieces, or indeed any number of pieces at all.

The grinding sound can be heard again, repeating now, not just echoing. Terra's lips form words. Three words, repeating, like the grinding. _This cannot continue this cannot continue-_

"NOW will someone explain what's going on?" Riku has to shout to be heard over the rising din.

"Hold on!" Aqua shouts back.

 _Hold onto what,_ Riku is about to ask, when the noise stops. Both Terra and the suit of armor sink to their knees and bow their heads. Silence falls upon the plains once more.

"Did you know that was gonna happen Aqua?" Ventus asks.

"No, but I could...sense...it?" Aqua shakes her head. "I'm not sure that's quite the word." She turns to Riku. "It's a long story, but I'll try and keep it short. Some years ago Xehanort manipulated the three of us into fighting. Arguing. He used that divide to kill our master Eraqus and bring us here, where he hoped to forge the χ-blade by using Ven's heart as the polar opposite of Vanitas."

"Apparently the two of us had been one at some point. And I...we...had been his apprentice. This is all second-hand stuff, from Xehanort and Vanitas. Who knows if it's even true?"

Aqua nods. "Indeed." She always liked using words like that, even if Terra and Ventus had thought they sounded funny coming from her. "Xehanort and Terra fought, while Vanitas just toyed with us. In the end, Vanitas joined with Ven, while Xehanort took over Terra's body. Neither one of those unions was complete, however. Ven defeated Vanitas and Terra fought back against Xehanort from within. I believe that Terra's heart was used to make that dark figure that Xehanort and his other selves sometimes used."

"I used it too once." Riku glances at Terra, still motionless in front of the armor. "I wish I hadn't. Wish I could apologize to him."

"There's still time." Aqua says. She follows his gaze thoughtfully. "But all we can do right now is believe in him."

"Do you?" Riku asks. Aqua looks back at him, shocked. "You looked like you wanted to kill him earlier."

Aqua fumbles for words. "I- I believe in _him_ \- But I- I wasn't sure if-" She turns away, towards the cliffs where it had all almost ended. _Everything ends._

"So you had to fight him then." Riku says. A shadow crosses Aqua's face. "I'm not stupid. I'm sixteen."

The absurdity of that remark is finally enough to make Aqua laugh. She laughs so hard, in fact, she nearly falls over. Ventus joins in, mostly out of a sense of relief that she's not quite as scary as she had been now that she's laughing.

Riku puts his hands in his pockets and kicks at the dirt. He doesn't understand what's so funny about that; sixteen year olds had always seemed like grownups to him.

"I'm sorry." Aqua says, still chuckling. "But- I'm like five months past my eighteenth birthday. Or I was before all this happened."

"Yeah! And then it's been, what, eleven, twelve years since then? Wait, what month is it?" Ventus exclaims.

Aqua puts a hand to her head in mock weariness. "I don't think I can handle being thirty years old."

Their brief moment of levity is interrupted by a new sound from the armor. It almost sounds like it's speaking. "Xeeeee-" It clanks loudly to its feet. Terra remains kneeling, motionless. It adjusts its grip on the Keyblade, raising it in an unmistakably aggressive move.

"Terra!" Riku, Aqua and Ventus cry out.

But Terra doesn't move, even as the blade whistles down towards his neck. Time seems to slow, and perhaps it does. It is relative, after all. Perhaps an event with sufficient gravity, such as this one, is enough to alter its normally relentless onslaught. What should be a swift powerful strike from a being that was quite literally made for such a thing has instead taken what amounts to five seconds of regular time to make it even halfway to its target.

Suddenly it's over. The blade stops. It's _touching_ his neck. A thin line of blood trickles down. The grinding hum rings out. Somehow, everyone can understand it. "We could have been so much more." it says, without really saying anything.

Terra opens his eyes and looks up. "We will be."

The armor begins to fold in on itself, crumpling down and rippling along the Keyblade until it reverts back to its original form. Terra catches it by the hilt before it can fall to the ground. He stands up, taking a few experimental swings with it to be sure he remembers how.

"Terra!" Ventus runs up to him. "You're okay! What did you do?"

"It was some sort of mind battle. I didn't want to put you guys at risk with a real one." he replies. His Keyblade fades away while he speaks.

"What was that?" Riku asks. He's getting tired of asking that. He's getting tired of not knowing.

"It's a part of me that was sundered when Xehanort invaded my body." Terra looks down at his left shoulder, where the armor is activated. "Somehow it kept going."

Ventus frowns. He's remembering something new, something he never experienced directly. "Sora...fought it..." he says slowly. "I...can't remember when."

"He sure got around." Terra says. He doesn't sound too surprised.

"You mean 'gets around'." Riku corrects him.

"Right. Sorry." Terra says in response.

There's a brief but uncomfortable pause, which is broken by Aqua saying, perhaps too loudly, "Now that the three of us have our armor, there's no need for you to fly us around from world to world. You can go back to searching for Sora if you like."

"Really? Great." Riku realizes his mistake the moment the words have left him. "I mean, not that it wasn't fun or anything, it's just I've known him for longer than I've known you guys, and it's a big universe for just the King and Donald and Goofy to search all by themselves."

Aqua smiles reassuringly. "Maybe you can fill us in on what the others are doing on the way back to the ship."

And he does. Roxas, Lea and Xion are trying to find out what exactly a normal life entails, while at the same time Roxas and Xion work with Kairi and Naminé to search their memories to see if Sora has left some trace or clue to his current whereabouts in them. It's more complicated than it sounds; Aqua hasn't really had a chance to sit down and talk with Naminé (or with anyone), but she thinks she understands how much memories can shape a person. She's not the same person she was before she was trapped in the Realm of Darkness, after all. And with three different lives to search through, it could take a long time before they find anything, if they even can...

"Kairi said to tell you she wished she could come, but Naminé seems to think having them all close together might help their chance of success. Something about mnemonic resonance." Riku explains.

"If that's the case, why didn't Lea come instead of you?" Ventus asks.

Riku frowns. "Uh..."

"Is he there with Roxas now?" Aqua says.

"N-no..."

"Well then." Aqua says, as if that settles it. When Riku, Terra and Ventus stare at her in bewilderment, she actually smirks. "Girls' night."

Before they know it, they're at Riku's ship. As the landing ramp lowers, he turns to them, arms folded. "Well? You gonna show me how you plan on leaving on your own?"

The Wayfinders look at each other. In unison, they toss their Keyblades up into the air and slap their left shoulder pauldrons. There's a brief flare of light, after which they reappear astride their gliders in their respective sets of armor.

"That'd do it." Riku says, trying not to sound impressed. "So the Keyblades can do all that, huh?"

"That's right." Aqua says, her voice muffled by her helmet. "Mostly. The armor has to be made separate, and it's very time-consuming."

"But it helps protect us from the darkness in the Lanes Between." Ventus adds.

"Huh." Riku uncrosses his arms. "Where you off to now?"

"Home, I think. Aqua certainly needs her rest." Terra says.

"I do not!" Aqua says.

"Do too!" Terra is quick to fire back.

They get the impression that Aqua's rolling her eyes, despite her helmet remaining on. "Ven, help me out."

"Sure I'll help out. I'll tuck you in once we get there!"

The ground shakes suddenly. Riku is the only one to feel it directly, but the others can still tell. "I think this place is telling us to go!" he shouts.

"We'll call you when we get back!" Aqua says with a wave. Terra and Ventus wave as well, and they soar into the sky after her as Riku hurries up the ramp. He turns the ship on quickly, only barely managing to get off the ground before an enormous chasm begins to open right where the ship had been parked.

From orbit, it's clear that the planet seems to be reshaping itself. The chasm traces the entire surface, like letters in a language as old as the planet itself. Riku rummages through the cockpit for a pencil and paper. He sketches the new desolation as best he can. "Master Yen Sid will want to hear about this." he mutters.


	3. Chapter 3

"I swear, you talk to those spells and stuff more than us." Ventus remarks one day.

Aqua pulls free of the tangle of magic and tries to focus on what Ven had said. "I thought you don't like it when I pay too much attention to you. You called it 'being clingy'?"

"Well, yeah..." Ventus scuffs his foot against the floor. "But it's weird. I can feel it, but I can't feel it like you do."

The spells call to her, their instructions unfinished. She tries to ease her way back in as she says, "You will someday Ven."

"That a promise?" he asks. But she's submerged in the magic again. Her body is still there on the leftmost of the three thrones. Her mind is somewhere else.

Ventus can feel the magic, as he said. He can also feel Aqua being drained by it. The spells woven throughout the Land of Departure were weakened by its time as Castle Oblivion. He knows it's one of Aqua's duties to maintain them, just as generations of Keyblade Masters before her had done. He just wishes it didn't take so much out of her. After one of these maintenance sessions, it's usually all she can manage to find her way to her room and close the door behind her. Sometimes she doesn't even make it to bed before she falls asleep.

He leaves an Ether on her lap and, after some thought, ruffles her hair the way she does to him when he's sleeping. He doubts she'll even notice it, resolving to find Terra and ask him to mention it when he sees her.

Finding Terra isn't as daunting a task as it normally might be. The castle is...still waking up. Ventus decides that's the best way to describe it. It only manifests a few areas at a time, as if it doesn't have the strength to present itself in all its splendor. So if Terra's not outside (he hadn't heard the front door), in the main hall, the throne room, one of the bedrooms, or the kitchen, he must be in the library.

Sure enough, he is. Terra looks up from a stack of books he'd assigned himself. "Hey Ven." he says.

Ventus takes a glance at the spine of just one of the books and lets out a disgusted huff. "I can't believe you actually assigned yourself these. You traitor."

Terra grins. "We always hated when Master Eraqus made us read them."

"WE did. Aqua didn't." Ventus corrects him.

"So we're both traitors." Terra leans back in his chair, his grin quickly becoming insufferable.

To avoid the urge to throw a stupid book at Terra's stupid face, Ventus asks, "So why are you reading those again?"

Terra shrugs. "There must be some reason the Master wanted us to read them."

"Yeah, but why _now_?"

"It's something to do" is Terra's idle response.

There really isn't much to be said to that, and so silence falls. Terra waits patiently, until it finally becomes clear that Ventus isn't going to try to strike up conversation again, then he picks up a book. Ventus does too, against his better judgement.

The sunlight is pouring in through the western windows by the time Aqua arrives. "What'd you do to your hair?" Terra asks by way of greeting.

"Huh?" Aqua pats it self-consciously.

"I knew I was forgetting something!" Ventus says. He slams the book closed and turns around to look at Aqua. She looks bleary; not just because of her hair, which is almost exactly the way Ventus had left it, but her eyes seem vacant and unfocused, like she's remembering how to use them. "That was me, actually. She does it all the time to me when _I_ sleep." he explains.

Aqua glares in mock exasperation at him. "Well since you've got time to mess it up, you've got time to help me put it back in order again."

Terra lets out one of his room-rattling guffaws. "Walked right into that one!"

"Hey, at least I CAN do it!" Ventus shoots back.

"It's not my fault my hands are so big!" Terra raises said hands defensively.

"All right," Aqua says, trying to sound authoritative. "Ven, with me. Terra, you... You just keep doing...that."

"I'm all done actually." Terra says.

Aqua tilts her head to one side. "Really?"

"Yeah. I finished them." Terra stands up.

"Oh." Aqua seems unsure of herself for a moment. "Well. I'll...take your word for it. Can you find something else to do?"

"Hasn't been a problem so far." His expression softens as he comes around the table to stand closer to her. "Don't worry. I'll be fine."

_That's my job_ , she almost chokes out. Instead she nods and leads Ventus back to her room.

* * *

She doesn't feel safe.

It's stupid, but she doesn't feel safe.

He's right behind her. He could choke her, break her neck, summon his Keyblade before she can react and-

"Hey." His tone is gentle. Despite that, she jumps. "You're okay."

"I don't-" She doesn't know that. She can't know that. She's sitting in front of the mirror with her eyes closed. She can't trust it to show what it's supposed to. Yet she has to trust that the darkness hasn't stolen Ven away, hasn't replaced him with his other half.

"Should I stop?" Ven asks.

She tenses, shakes her head. "We should get it over with."

It's not even that complicated. Her hair just won't stay flat. Ventus doesn't know what kind of magic she works on it before she goes to bed, and she doesn't seem like she's going to be able to provide an answer right now anyway. So he works quietly, gently working apart the knots in Aqua's hair with her brush. He wishes he could undo the knots in her shoulders as well, but she doesn't like being touched like that. At least, not most of the time. Sometimes she hugs him or Terra so tightly they can hardly breathe. They don't hold it against her; they just joke about needing one of her Cure spells afterward; but they do wonder.

"Think that's good?" he asks at last.

She braces herself to open her eyes. She keeps her gaze fixated on her hair, which looks fine. Better than it had before, if she's honest. "It's perfect Ven!" She leaps to her feet and puts her hands on his shoulders. "Thank you!"

"Um, you're welcome?" He can't really shrug at the moment, so he just looks helpless. It does not come naturally. "I didn't really do that much."

"But it's the thought that counts!" she says, too brightly. She squeezes his shoulder and abruptly lets go. "I'm going to get ready for bed now, all right?"

"It's barely even d-" Ventus corrects himself. "Uh, barely even nighttime! And you haven't even had anything to eat!"

Aqua had forgotten that. She's still getting used to needing things like food and rest. "Oh, I'll- I'll get something later if I'm hungry."

Ventus is skeptical, but there couldn't be any harm in giving her some space. "Well, if you're sure..."

Aqua nods. "I'm sure. Good night Ven!" As he makes to close the door behind him, she adds, "Oh, and tell Terra I said good night as well if you can!"

"Night Aqua." he says.

The door clicks softly shut. She casts a quick soundproofing spell around the room before she throws herself onto her bed and screams.

* * *

She rises with the dawn, dragging her feet as she makes her way to the door. It's a cool morning, but that's not the reason she's trembling. Ven had been right; she should have had something to eat. Fortunately, no one else is up this early, so she doesn't have to deal with pitying looks. Or worse, questions. Her breakfast feels as though it takes forever to make: scrambled eggs, toast, two glasses of pomegranate juice. She almost reaches for the bread again, but she worries she may have eaten too much too quickly. She puts it away, trying to tell her stomach, still aching for more, that there will be other meals later.

After she cleans the dishes, she goes for a walk in the mountains. She wants to see the dew on the grass before it leaves for the day, to savor how fresh and pure everything seems.

_Not like you._ The thought is there before she's even aware of it. She stumbles across it like a stone on the path, leaving her pulse racing uncomfortably. She looks around, half-expecting to see Not Her skulking beneath a tree or the shadow of a boulder. When nothing leaps out at her, she puts a hand to her chest, takes a few deep breathes of the sweet mountain air, and continues.

Her heart, which hasn't slowed a bit, leads her to where it all began that night beneath the stars: the mountain across from the castle. "Why have I come here?" she asks.

There's no answer waiting for her, just the soft touch of the wind against her skin. She's still in her simple gray nightgown, but she suddenly finds herself tempted to lie down in the grass and fall asleep again. She convinces herself not to. Instead, she sits on the bench and lets her eyes settle on the land below, where they'd done most of their actual training: how to use magic and fight without disturbing nature, as well as basic survival skills. Harsh lessons, perhaps, but necessary. She hasn't been down there since the world had been reformed into its true self. She wonders what had happened to the plants and animals when she had performed Eraqus's so-called 'trick'. Had there been any casualties? Her stomach sank at the thought. That would be her task today, to go there and inspect the damage.  _Would Master Eraqus have kept a catalog of each and every creature, every type of plant and flower and tree..._

Just as her thoughts begin to race, she comes to realize someone's sitting next to her. Mostly because he just put his boots on her lap.

It's Ventus.

"How'd you find me?" she asks. "And don't tell me you followed your heart."

He sticks his tongue out at her. "Same way I found Terra yesterday. I just checked everywhere you weren't, and then here you were." he tells her.

"Oh." She's almost disappointed at how simple his explanation is. "Could you move your feet please?"

He immediately swings his legs down to the ground. "Didn't wanna startle you." he explains. "Looked like you were deep in thought."

She nods. "I was thinking about the land below. I should go and see how it is."

"Want some help?"

"Maybe. I hadn't thought about it."

"That's so like you." Ventus responds.

That catches her off-balance. "What?"

"You always try and do everything yourself. Even before..." He trails off. "You know." he finishes lamely.

She feels a surge of irritation. She stands up. "Let's get back to the castle. I still have to get dressed."

Ventus sighs and gets to his feet as well. "Right."

* * *

Aqua checks the spells one last time. Their answer is the same as it had been before: they can manage without her for a day. She gives them an affectionate farewell, or at least as affectionate a farewell as she can give a modestly sapient tapestry of magic with no known capacity for or ability to understand emotions. Then she checks her Keyblade, to make sure it still responds to her. She's healthy, focused, and her own magic is topped off; ready to go in every way, until she remembers what Ventus had said earlier. She loves them both, and she still feels like it's too good to be true to have them back. And yet... And yet she still feels that this is a job for a Keyblade Master. Not that she says that directly. "It'll be dreadfully boring," she tells them instead. "Checking every single plant and animal against the records."

"We know." Terra says. "But it won't be _as_ boring with some company."

"Exactly!" Ventus chimes in.

"We'll be gone most of the day." she warns.

Ventus shrugs. "Face it Aqua, we're coming with you." he says.

"All right. Don't say I didn't warn you!" She gives up and takes them to the back door. She can feel the castle closing down behind them as they leave, can almost hear the sigh of relief as it realizes it doesn't have to keep all those rooms open, at least for a while. On the ride down, she tries explaining this to Terra and Ventus, but her words fall short.

"I think it's just trying to get back to where it was." Terra says.

"It's just out of practice at being that. Like if you don't exercise for a while, and then when you do, you get tired." Ventus adds.

"Speaking from experience?" Terra elbows Ventus.

Ven elbows him right back. "You forget I almost beat you at that arm-wrestling contest?"

"Almost doesn't count."

"Fine. Rematch when we get back."

"Fine."

Aqua just giggles quietly, hoping she doesn't interrupt them.

The platform lurches to a halt. They've arrived.

The Lone Peaceful Clearing seems just as they remember it. Terra remarks on this.

"I suppose it makes sense. It's one of the closest places to the castle." Aqua says.

"So the further we get, the worse it'll be?" Ventus asks.

"Perhaps." Aqua considers how to proceed. Their world isn't terribly big, the four landmasses that comprise it would be considered islands on most other worlds. "The most efficent way would be to start from here and work our way out in circles. After that, we simply move onto the next major landmass, going from north to south. We'll save the aquatic creatures for last."

"Sounds good to me." Terra says.

Ventus nods in agreement. "And I've still got that parchment Merlin gave us. We can use that to take notes on."

"Good thinking Ven." Aqua commends him. She extends a hand in a sweeping motion. "Shall we?"

They make it a whole two circles before someone resorts to small talk. "So, you sleep well?" Terra asks.

Aqua shrugs. "I don't really remember how I slept."

"Me either." Ventus says.

"Oh. Well, I slept okay. No bad dreams this time."

"That's good." Aqua says with a smile. She can't think of anything else to say to that.

"Yeah." Terra says.

The pack of wolf-beasts is further south than they should be. Aqua isn't sure, but she thinks they look slightly less emaciated, and the noises they make are sounding more like words as well. She remembers what Master Eraqus had told his apprentices: the creatures (patients, he'd called them) were from a world that had or would fall many years from now. From the way he'd chosen his words, she'd gotten the impression it hadn't/wouldn't succumb to darkness, but to something else. She and Terra and Ventus had never liked the wolf-beasts, in particular because of their persistence if roused. Eraqus had forbidden his apprentices from killing any of the creatures on this world, so they had had to run and hide, something which Terra in particular had found frustrating.

"Death will come as it must, to all things in time. There is no need to hasten it unless you have no other choice." the Master had said. (Was that what Terra had remembered just before they'd journeyed back to the Badlands?)

"How come they're this far south?" Terra asks.

"I don't know. Maybe something else moved in up north and pushed them out." Aqua replies. Their aversion to sunlight is why Eraqus had settled the wolf-beasts up north to begin with. Now they'ree attempting to move into the tunnel system set up by the Tunnelers, fiercely venomous creatures with an even stronger aversion to sunlight. There are bodies strewn around the wolf-beasts' campsite, and occasionally one of the survivors, typically one of the cloaked beasts, will stalk over to a corpse and stand over it, almost seeming to be mourning.

"One good Sleep'll be enough to catch the whole pack." Terra says.

"And then we move them all into stasis until we can get them back north. Then we can check on the Tunnelers." Aqua shakes her head in dismay. "I'm not looking forward to _that_."

Ventus hasn't said anything, but Aqua is too caught up in planning to notice. "Ready?" She raises her right hand. "On three. One..."

"Wait." he says suddenly.

Aqua freezes.

"What's up?" Terra asks.

Ventus frowns. "This...this is neutral ground. Right? A place where darkness and light are supposed to be balanced?"

Terra nods, and Ven continues.

"Then...maybe we shouldn't."

Aqua lowers her hand slowly. "Ven, you just said the balance-"

"-Must be upheld. I know. But who's to say this isn't balance? Nature is taking its course."

"We're Keyblade wielders." Terra says. "We live in the castle overlooking this whole world. We literally see things from a higher perspective." He stops to consider his words. "No, I think you're right."

"Terra!" A few of the wolf-beasts stir at the noise, and Aqua hastily lowers her voice. "What are you talking about?"

"Sometimes balance requires putting a finger on the scale. Maybe sometimes you have to  _not_ do that instead." Terra says.

Aqua's grip tightens on her Keyblade, reflexively summoned just a moment ago. "If we get this wrong, the Land of Departure could- It could turn...inside-out! I'm not going to let something like that happen again!"

"If we get this wrong, then we'll fix it!" Ventus says.

"You can't know that!" she hisses. "Some things... Some things can't be fixed!"

"Aqua." Ventus says gently. "Just trust me. Okay?"

She bites at her lip until she's about to draw blood. Finally she nods. "Okay." she whispers. "Okay. Let- Let's give it a try."

Ventus gives her a grin. "Thank you." he says.

Terra just nods, with a ghost of a smile flitting across his face.

They leave the wolf-beasts' makeshift camp behind and continue their search.

* * *

"No way." Ventus breathes.

"It's just a coincidence." Aqua tells everyone, but most of all herself.

Terra creates a rock with his magic and  smashes it into dust.

Thirteen  species of  animals and seven  kinds of plantlife are unaccounted for.

Ventus has his hand on Aqua's shoulder. His other hand would be on Terra's, but Terra  stands off to one side, as though he doesn't trust himself.

"Let's save the ocean for another day." Aqua says, doing her best to sound normal. "You both could use some rest."

"Can we use our gliders to get back?" Terra asks, looking over his shoulder at the both of them.

She pretends to think about it. "Well, you HAVE been helpful..."

To the surprise of both her and Ventus, Terra doesn't wait for her to stop pretending. He summons his glider and takes off toward the castle.

"That wasn't any fun." Ventus says.

Privately, Aqua agrees. But out loud she says, "Go on. See if you can't beat him up there."

"You're not coming?" Ventus asks.

She shakes her head. "I'll see if we missed anything on my way back."

He gives her a searching look, but summons his glider as well and rockets after Terra. Aqua has to shield her face from the dust he kicks up. Her fond smile disappears as she realizes just how dark it's getting.

_I should have gone with them they're leaving me behind i did this to myself i did and that's what really hurts_

So she runs.


	4. Chapter 4

The next time Terra and Ventus see her, they almost don't recognize her.

True, it had been a while since they'd gotten back to the castle and realized they were locked out without her, forcing them to wait in the courtyard until she got back. But that had been an hour at most; it could hardly account for the injuries she is suddenly covered in, or how long her hair has gotten. It tumbles down past her shoulders as she regards them with a terrible gaze. Every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year in darkness is trapped behind her eyes. And they are _her_ eyes, not the rancid yellow of Xehanort's influence. Just hers, brown and sorrow-filled.

She opens her mouth. "I-" She coughs horribly. "I'm sorry I kept you waiting." She staggers towards the front door, past Terra and Ventus, who are both too stunned to say anything. She lays her palm flat against the doors and the whole building seems to tremble. There's a surge of magic in the air, which washes over and into her, then just as suddenly is forced out again through her open wounds. That doesn't make sense; the magic had come from the building, and maybe even the land itself, as if it had sensed her pain. The magic trickles back to its source as the doors open, strangely reluctantly, it seems.

"Aqua..." Ventus finally manages to say.

She holds up a weary hand. "Not- Not now, please. I just want to get some rest."

"You're gonna bleed all over your sheets if you go to bed now." Terra says.

She just looks at him.

"...right. Sorry." How could he forget? They've lived with each other almost all their lives.

"If you won't let us use magic, at least let us help you bandage them." Ventus says pleadingly.

She wants to refuse, but her sudden fear that she might need a mirror to bandage some of the scratches properly prey on her mind. "Fine." she says.

* * *

The front doors lead directly to her room for some reason. She thinks it might be the castle's way of getting back at her, and wonders if she'll have to reconsider her appraisal of its emotional intelligence.

"What'd you do to your hair?" Ventus asks. He and Terra turn their backs to Aqua so she can have some privacy while she undresses. "I know it wasn't an illusion, cause I fixed it the other day and it felt as long as it looked."

Aqua tries to grab her hair to examine it, letting out a hiss as her body politely asks her not to. "I didn't do anything. It started growing on my way back."

"Time doesn't pass in the Realm of Darkness." Terra says. "Maybe it's catching up to you."

"Does that mean she's gonna be thirty after all?" Ventus asks with a grin.

Terra elbows him.

She heaves a sigh at last. "Okay. I'm ready as I'll ever be."

They all turn at the same time. Then it's Terra and Ven who hiss.

Aqua's body is marked by cuts and bruises, scrapes, gashes. Her arms and legs seem to have suffered the worst, like the creatures of darkness had known to avoid her vital organs in order to prolong her suffering. Only a few of them are oozing blood, but enough to be worrisome.

"How are you still moving?" Terra asks in disbelief.

She lets out a shaky laugh. "I don't know that I will be for much longer."

"Okay. Ven, you start from the bottom. When you're done I'll go from the top."

She shivers as they approach. Terra doesn't think it's that cold in here, but he's not the one in his undergarments. He resists the urge to put a hand on her shoulder. "You're safe." he says instead. "Just say the word if you want us to stop."

She bites her lip and nods. Ventus takes this as a sign to begin treating her legs, applying Eraqus's special salve to the worst of her wounds and bandages to the rest. Her breath catches in her throat. "I can tell it hurts Aqua." he says. "Just... You don't have to hide it."

She shakes her head vigorously. _No weakness. No._

Terra's voice comes from her left. She keeps her eyes on the door, half-expecting it to be flung open by some shapeless horror coming to drag her back down into darkness. "You've been strong for so long. But it's over. You can relax now."

"You're wrong Terra." she says ruefully. "It's not over. It never ends. Nothing ever ends." The words tumble out now. She can't stop them if she tries. "Nothing ever ends, it just changes. It's like a dream, where one thing moves to another and it all makes perfect sense. It shouldn't but it does. It  _doesn't_ make sense, but we just have to accept it and move on. How can you and Riku remember things so differently? You were both  _there_ . We all were!" Blood rushes in her ears. She's breathing fast and hard. "That- That book in the Master's library- The one that said- The one that said we were all- We were all just some thing's dreams. I- I remember its name. Why can I remember its name? Az-"

"Aqua." Terra says. He and Ventus take one of her hands in each of their own.

Ventus says her name as well. "Aqua."

Her chest heaving, she tries to focus on them.

"Can you name four things for me?" Ventus asks. "Four things you can see."

"W- What? Why?"

"It's something Eraqus had you do for me once." He squeezes her hand ever so slightly. "Can you do that?"

"Um..." She tears her gaze away from the door. "I see our Keyblades. I don't know why they're over there. They should be with us. We've been apart for so long."

"I think they're over there because there's nothing to be afraid of right now." Terra says.

She shakes her head again. "So that's three. Wait, it's a group of things. Does that make it one?"

"It doesn't matter. Do you think you can keep going anyway?" Ventus says.

"O- Okay, there's, um, my medicine cabinet." The only reason she has one in her room and her friends don't is because she worries so much more than they do. "There's my dresser, my desk, the mirror above the desk. I hate it, I can't stand it, I want to get rid of it."

"It's just a mirror, Aqua. Why do you hate it?" Terra asks.

"I saw it in darkness. It made  _her_ ." She shuts her eyes. She knows it's pointless; Not-Her can find her anywhere, even behind her own eyelids. She hardly even notices Ven's hands leaving her own, but she does notice when he begins treating a nasty gash on one of her calves. She gasps. Her whole body goes rigid.

"Sorry. I should've warned you." he says apologetically.

It's all she can do to make a small wordless noise in acknowledgement.

Terra's presence shifts to somewhere close behind her. "What do you want done with your hair?" he says gently.

She shrugs, and pain surges along every muscle she just used.  _Bad idea._ "How long is it?" she asks through gritted teeth.

She can feel him lifting parts of it up, as if trying to find where it ends.

"Geez. It's almost to the floor." he remarks.

"After eleven years? I'm sure." For some reason, her chest doesn't ache like it usually does after saying that. She opens her eyes. "We'll get rid of it. Some day."

"All right. Just don't blame me when you wind up getting tangled in it overnight."

"You could try keeping it. I think Sora met a princess with hair that was even longer." Ventus says. He's crouching down in front of her, working on the last of her lower injuries.

"How're you feeling Aqua?" Terra asks after a while.

Aqua sighs. "Better. Though I can already tell it's going to be interesting trying to get to sleep in all these bandages."

"There might be a spell or something we can use. Maybe Aero, Zero Gravity-"

" _Zero_ Gravity would make it impossible to sleep." Aqua replies.

"Hmm. Half gravity then?" Terra looks over her shoulder. "What do you think Ven?"

Ventus looks up. "Huh? Oh. I'll give it some thought while you do your stuff." He checks the container of salve at his side. "Oh man, it's empty. You're gonna have to get another from Aqua's medicine cabinet."

"No problem. I'll be right back, okay?" He says this last part to Aqua, nudging her with his shoulder as he edges past her. She's actually able to smile back at him.

Ventus gets to his feet. He stretches loudly, joints popping and clicking in a way they'd only really heard from their Master in those long-ago mornings. Even he looks surprised by it. "Geez. I didn't think it'd been  _that_ long." he remarks.

"How are we on bandages Ven?" Terra asks from the cabinet.

"Should be good. But I don't know how bad her back is." Ventus says.

"It looked pretty bad. I'm surprised your clothes didn't end up getting shredded Aqua."

She's about to shrug until she thinks better of it. She does the verbal equivalent instead. "Magic works in mysterious ways." she adds.

"You could say that about a lot of things we do." Terra says, closing the cabinet and making his way back over to her. Ventus steps aside, passing him the roll of bandages to add to his own. "Thanks Ven."

"Don't mention it. I'm gonna grab something to eat though if that's okay." he says.

Aqua frowns. She really would like him to stay, but she remembers how well being clingy turned out for her the last time. "It's fine." she tells him.

"Remember that spell." Terra calls after Ventus. He turns, half-jogging backward while giving them both a thumbs-up, and closes the door behind himself.

Terra opens the new container of salve and spreads some of it onto his fingers. He sets the container down on Aqua's desk and lifts her wrist up gently to attend to a scratch on the outside of one of her arms. She's shaking again, he notices.

"This feels... _strange_ ," she says.

"Strange how?"

"I can't remember the last time any of us was this badly injured and no one thought to use magic."

"Well, we thought about it. But the castle itself tried to heal you and you wouldn't let it."

She turns her head to look at him. "When?"

"Just before we came in here." he says.

"Oh. Is that what that was." She doesn't phrase it as a question.

They fall into a rhythm: Aqua tries not to wince when one of her wounds is treated, Terra apologizes almost excessively, she assures him it's fine, rinse, repeat. By the time they're done, even her patience is at an end.

"You don't have to keep saying that." she tells him.

He doesn't look up. "Yeah. I do."

She winces. He apologizes.

Rinse, repeat.

"But why?" she asks.

"Because when I do that- When I cause you pain-" He wraps a bandage a little too tightly. "-I see my hand trying to choke you."

"That wasn't you!" she says. Her voice, ringing with conviction, echoes around that tiny room.

"I guess we'll never know." His hands are clenched into fists at his side. He stares out the window. "I don't remember much. But some things... It's like he burned them onto my part of our mind so I'd never forget. Even if he did."

"Terra. You may not remember, but I do. I remember fighting him on the outside, but you were fighting him on the inside. You made him get rid of his own memories to stop you. And I know that wasn't the end of it. I know you. I know you kept fighting, any way you could."

"It wasn't good enough!  _I_ wasn't good enough!" He's shouting now, he can't help it, he couldn't help his friends, couldn't help himself-

"His strength is not your weakness!"

They both fall silent. He's no longer staring out the window; he's glaring at Aqua, and she's glaring right back at him.

The anger abruptly leaves him, like the air fizzing out of a Tank Toppler. He sighs, his shoulders slumping. "Wow. There really isn't a lot I can say about that."

Aqua's anger is slower to leave her. She regards him almost coolly. "So you agree?"

"I hope not. Can't have it your way all the time." They both turn to look at Ventus, who's just arrived with a bowl of popcorn. "What?"

"Do you even know what we were arguing about?" Terra asks.

"Nope. Just saying."

They're all too tired to laugh at that. Aqua can hardly even manage a smile.

"So... It turns out making a whole new spell is harder than I thought." Ventus says sheepishly.

"No kidding. I should've considered that before dumping it on you." Terra says.

"We can work on it together in the morning." Aqua mumbles while she's stifling a yawn.

"Uh uh. You're not getting up before noon." Ventus says, folding his arms.

Aqua is about to respond when she yawns again. And again, a moment later.

"Okay, that does it. Time for bed." Terra says. He ushers Aqua in that direction, and for once, she's too tired to argue, gingerly climbing under the sheets instead. She takes a sip of the glass of water by the side of her bed. She sets it down again, then immediately picks it back up and drains it. "I'd better get you another, huh?" Terra remarks with a smile.

She waves a hand over the empty glass and a tiny stormcloud begins to refill it.

Both her friends can tell by the expression on her face that now would not be the time to tease her about her use of magic. They wish her good night instead,  not  sure if she can even hear them.

She's  most definitely  asleep by the time they reach the door , though.


End file.
